Record from Propellerhead Software

Propellerhead Software has officially unveiled Record, not a digital audio workstation application, but ” a whole new take on music recording” that “combines effortless recording and a stunning software mixer console with a limitless rack of audio processing gear that builds itself or can be infinitely customized.”

It’s a standalone recording application, but if you own Reason, Reason devices will be available within Record.

The Propellerhead Record promo video is embedded above. See this previous post for a Propellerhead Record demo.

“We figured it was time that someone took a fresh look at recording from a musician’s perspective. Not needing to bolt music features onto an aging audio application, we truly started from scratch with full knowledge of today’s computer architectures and capabilities. Record is the result,” says Ernst Nathorst-Böös, CEO. “In short we wanted to do what we’ve always done—help people make more and better music.”

For guitar players, the built-in virtual POD from Line 6 brings a wide range of top quality guitar amps and cabinets. Record’s software mixer’s sound is modeled after the SSL 9000K hardware with flexible routing, full dynamics, EQ, advanced effects handling and complete automation.

The bad news is that Propellerhead Record is dongled, details at Propellerhead Ignition Key.

Record begins beta testing today and will be available for purchase worldwide on September 9, 2009. Record will be available through all Propellerhead dealers worldwide at a suggested retail price of $299 USD / €299 EUR.

More information on Propellerhead Record is available at the Record-You site.

Check it out and leave a comment with your thoughts on Propellerhead’s new recording application!

Note: We corrected this post to note that Propellerhead Record is not a digital audio workstation (DAW), per Propellerhead’s request.

35 thoughts on “Record from Propellerhead Software

  1. Too much hype for what it is – this looks like it will only be exciting for Reason freaks.

    Or am I missing something?

  2. yeah but reason is pretty fucking awesome. I just got back into it for the first time in, literally, years – 4.0 is disgusting.

    if this runs nearly as smooth as they say it does, it very well could take over my daw.

    does it support vst/au?

  3. I am also leery of any product described as being totally built from the ground up with revolutionary new out-of-the-box thinking that needs a… …usb dongle? really? Quote: "we truly started from scratch with full knowledge of today’s computer architectures and capabilities." Ok, so why did you crap out and use late 90's tech that everyone hates? Not to mention that myself and at least 18 other musicians that I consort with use laptops for audio production. Why is that important? my laptop has 4 usb ports. 2 are used full-time by my audio interface and midi keyboard. one is used frequently with portable hard drives, and the last is used for my mpd during some live sets. The point being, I dont have room, time, or the patience to mess around with some POS dongle. I've said it before, and i'll say it again: I will NEVER purchase ANY product that requires a dongle to work.
    Congratulations Propellerhead; in the span of a few days you've managed to get me very interested and then completely stop caring at all. Bah. I was really excited to see what this was too.. rubbish!

  4. As some would point out, if i go play a show and cant spare a usb slot or have a net connection, i can record the show and save it, just not open it until i have authenticated. To me, this is crippled software, and if i pay money for something, i want it to work every time unequivocally.

    1. People say this a lot… but I mean, couldn't you 'forget' your Laptop as well? Or your favorite mic? Or your acoustic instrument?

      I mean, why should PH have to accommodate *your* neglect?

    2. People say this a lot… but I mean, couldn't you 'forget' your Laptop as well? Or your favorite mic? Or your acoustic instrument?

      I mean, why should PH have to accommodate *your* neglect?

    3. THat's not how it works. You have a usb donglr key, or you can auterize throught the net. I Record and after fighting with protools for years this works perfectly.

  5. I liked the teaser video better.
    My own ideas on what the product was going to be were much more exciting that what it turned out to be. Live recording? Really? That is it?
    I am very much not impressed as this is just a boring GARAGE BAND clone. And the interface is a bit ugly if I am honest. May be it's the small screen but it looks cluttered and messy.

    I mean, look a the stuff you can do in Max. Or the NI Maschine. Or MAX for live. Or even Energy XT! All that is exciting stuff. This is so boring.

    And a USB dongle! We all love those and they stop piracy 100%. Right?

    No more proof is needed that a once exciting company is old, boring and circling the drain of irrelevance.

  6. It was a stupid idea…if i was inside the Propellerhead team i would suggest to make a Reason 5 with that new SSL mixer and a VST/VSTi wrapper device…

    Also the price is very high for a “starter’s” program like this.

    1. Record works better than that clunky peice of crp pro-tools that we had to fight with for years at our studio. Record is seemless compared to Pro-tools. I can do more with Record than Cubase and Pro-tools combined. Your jack asssses!

  7. It was a stupid idea…if i was inside the Propellerhead team i would suggest to make a Reason 5 with that new SSL mixer and a VST/VSTi wrapper device…

    Also the price is very high for a "starter's" program like this.

  8. I'm disappointed by Propellerhead Record, too.

    Why is this a separate application? If you add this and Reason together, you're spending a lot of money!

    When the start talking about running Reason within Record and Rewiring it to other apps, it all gets confusing!

  9. Yeah,the teaser was definitely much better than this piece of not-so-impressive software turn out to be.I'm not a Reason lover in a first place,but I've used it on a few occasions and IMHO it would be so much better to just give it a proper audio support,even without the new SSL mixer.I just can't see anything that amazing about Record.As a matter of fact,I can't see anything interesting about it either.

  10. First off, from a marketing perspective I enjoy Propellerheads sense of humor.

    First let me say I'm a Live/VST fanatic. I prefer Lives approach to Reason's "hardware" replacement metaphore.

    If I put myself in a Reason uesrs shoes, I was kind of digging the concept of Record until I saw the mixer desk. Ugh. Their entire marketing messages is you don't have to be an engineer, then they offer a mix interface with a zillion knobs that is would be really great if you were – an audio engineer. Weird.

    I'm leery about the integration of 3rd party FX. Cakewalk follows this strategy. The down-side is that the inclusion of these plugins are based on licensing deals. So in the case of Cakewalk, they'd add and remove plugins with every release. So, if you started on Sonar 1 and wrote songs dependent on the plugins and stuck with Sonar through to the current version and had to re-install – you'd have to re-install every version of Sonar to get the plugins configed properly.

    I wonder if there is enough here to make a someone who rewires Reason into Live/Cubase… to go this route? Perhaps this will do better with those who only use Reason now and want to record audio.
    This being the case, seems like they should have just offered an integreated add-in for Reason.

    Mark Mosher
    http://www.markmoshermusic.com
    http://www.modulatethis.com
    http://www.twitter.com/markmosher

  11. Let me get this straight, Record is every other DAW software, but with a copy protection dongle (good idea, I'm sure no one will be able to hack that the week of the release), a limited instrument selection (unless you get Reason too), limited amp modeling (unless you already use Line 6 gear), no VST/AU/RTAS/etc support, and a terribly cluttered and confusing interface? Wow, I'm impressed.

  12. It's a bit odd they tout this for "musicians" instead of "recording engineers" and yet the mixing board is directly based off an SSL that only recording engineers would be familiar with.

    Anyway, I welcome Propellerheads' contribution to this market. The more competition, the better.

  13. My take:

    1. VST/AU/RTAS people will have very little use for this.

    2. Guitarists/drummers/bands may have use for this, I don't know. It will face stiff competition.

    3. Reason users will LOVE this. Reason and Record are basically two applications which, when used together, become one. Kudos, Propellerheads, you found a way to add serious audio to Reason, without breaking your "Reason will never have audio" vow. Which is great by me. 🙂

  14. It's not an amazing piece of audio recording gear but I bet it will do just what the description says it will do. Reason is solid and works. They may not integrate third party plugs ins within the program BUT they do have ReWire which offers third party a lotta stuff. With that said ReWire is a bit tricky, but I think for $300 (well it will be $150 for me as a Reason user) it will be a good product. As to this being a DAW or not, I believe this is indeed a digital audio workstation although not as flexibile as a DAW program like say Wavelab or ACID. Good job Reason.

  15. Wow.. At first I liked the product.. but It def had a little bit of ehhh-ness around it..

    First, Designed for "musicians and not engineers?" I don't buy that one bit. Especially with the comment about the mixer being based off that fancy-pants mixer board.

    Second, USB Dongle? I hated how Logic Pro 7 did that… and don't like how ProTools requires the Digi devices to be plugged in for it to be used. This dongle idea is no good. how many times is Reason pirated?

    Third, everything was great till the singer started.. He looked like a she. a heshe.

    It does seem kinda like a garage band remake, only a bit better, (and way more expensive) of a program.

  16. Wow, so it's just like Logic, but with no VST/AU/RTAS support and needs a dongle? YAAY Propellerhead, we're all completely SOLD on this!
    What a load of ass. I must say I'm even less excited about this new DAW than Presonus Studio One. And yes, it is a DAW. How is it not a DAW? Because it has less features than practically every other DAW out there? Oh, and nobody should be touting 'unlimited audio channels' as a selling point for a DAW nowadays.
    If this was released 11 years ago it would have been revolutionary. Maybe.

  17. You haters keep on rockin' the Songsmith.

    Leave the propellerhead stuff for guys who actually have some shit going on.

  18. Lack of VST means I can't use my Amplitube patches, so it is no good to me. Dongles get lost all the time, so even if I was happy with the quality of the built-in virtual POD (which I'm NOT), I would never by it.

  19. I've used Reason since version 2, and I love it for what it is. I *tried* to be a Record beta tester, but every time I tried to launch it, my machine barfed (Macbook Pro w/ 2.16 Ghz Intel, 2GB ram). I run Pro Tools and Live all day on this pooter with no issues. From I've seen in videos, and what little I got to see in my own studio, I don't see how this competes with Live – and the workspace is CLUTTERED, like the audio equivalent of a Microsoft Office app.

  20. How about you trying it before you comment like this.

    I've tested the beta and there are 2 options to run the program without the dongle, if you e.g. can't find it immediately or so.
    I work on a macbook, with also only 2 usb ports
    I hook up an extra keyboard, an M-audio trigger finger, a behringer BSC controller, an M-audio keyrig, an extra Firewire and USB audio interface, trough 2 external usb hubs.
    In my modest opinion I have no problems with authorising with a dongle, since you can take it back out when you're in the program.

    But then again… if you want an excuse to comment about a dongle, be my guest- The only thing I read between the lines is "I'm one of those guys that downloaded my reason from bittorrent, and I wanted to use record( because it lt looks so great), but I can't afford it"

    If however you're a registred propellerheads customer, you would know that their software and their support are a pleasure to work with.
    If PPHS choose for a dongle- I can't blame them- After all, when everyone steels your software instead of buying it, there's not much else you can do.

  21. I love the fact that I don't have to hook up reason to live anymore. Re-wire works great, but getting lines with efects in and out was pretty complicated sometimes.
    I bough live last year because I was missing audio recording and editing in reason, and I'm pretty sure I will never ever use it again.
    The clip editing in record is much easier- and because of the time-stretching of audio clips it will now compete easily with Live in the area of using it to play live in clubs.

    I think this is the perfect solution for all the things I was missing in reason.

  22. If you're already happy with a current DAW, you probably won't have much use for Record. In fact you may be appalled at how many "standard" features it lacks.

    Really, this is made to please one user group: people who connect with Propellerhead's "virtual hardware" style of user interface. These will mostly be Reason fans, and people who have never used a computer for music before.

  23. THIS IS SO FUNNY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    If you have neither the Ignition Key nor is able to use Internet Authorization, you can launch the program and select "Run in Demo Mode". In Demo Mode, you can work without time restrictions – and even save your creations to disk. That's right. You can SAVE in Demo Mode. The only thing you can't do without authorizing Record using the Key or over the Internet, is to open your saved files.

  24. THIS IS SO FUNNY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    If you have neither the Ignition Key nor is able to use Internet Authorization, you can launch the program and select "Run in Demo Mode". In Demo Mode, you can work without time restrictions – and even save your creations to disk. That's right. You can SAVE in Demo Mode. The only thing you can't do without authorizing Record using the Key or over the Internet, is to open your saved files.

  25. There seems to be alot of hate on this board about Prop. .. Record..
    I guess maybe you guys are already pretty techically savoy on other programs.. I must say for myself i have Pro tools 8 M Powered and Record..
    It took me along time even get around the Pro tools always running into comp problems.. ended up getting new computer to try to run it w all the plug ins but now Pro Tools Isnt quite ready for Windows 7 so I parked Pro tools and wipped out the Record / Reason.. and have recently been using it.. To me its much easier to use.. sure i dont really know how to edit stuff very well but that is a huge prob for me at pro tools.. im very happy w Propellerhead Record and would recommend it for anybody diving into market for the first time like I did..

  26. Musicians arguments never change or end. They look for magic in the software to help their weak ability to create something on their own. Reason/Record is a great DAW just like Tools, Sonar, and the rest. Stop bitching and get on with creating music. Beethoven and Bach did just fine without electricity.

  27. @bobby, obviously your work for one of the competitors. BTW all of the major DAW designers are going to the dongle, to prevent cracking. So either you work for the competitors or you prefer cracked software rather than spending the money.

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